Maternity Leave experience/recs

I'll be doing that this time. I'll be using all my 2024 holiday (6 weeks) to leave early and then start maternity, I'll also be take the full year and then holiday for all of 2025 at the end of that lol 😆. So all in all I'll be taken 14.5months

@Sam wow 6 weeks! That’s amazing. Is this your second? What did you do first time around? Sounds like a good plan. So you’re using all of your leave for extra chill time before mat leave not carrying it over?

I would recommend taking the majority of the annual leave at the end or 1, 2 days a week on return if you're able to work during the pregnancy

When are you due? When do your holidays at work run to and from? I was due 29th July. Went on mat leave 17th June (used 4 weeks annual leave) before my leave started then 2 weeks at the end cos I went back July and the holidays ran until march so wanted some left for the rest of the year.

Saw this on my feed (this baby is my second). Agree with @Natalie that it depends when your leave runs from. Mine for example renews every January 1st (I’m due early Jan as well. I have two weeks left of holiday to take so will use this at the beginning the start my maternity leave first week of December. I can then use all of my leave allowance for 2025 + bank holidays accrued and tag that to the end of my Mat leave to extend it. I did the same with my first and managed to finish work at 36 weeks. This still I’ll be leaving earlier. Personally I enjoy taking a few weeks off before my due date to really nest and focus on me & baby. Others like @Kas suggested like more holiday at the end to extend it. It really depends what works for you. I’m doing both

I started maternity at 36 weeks and kept my annual leave to add onto the end (I had a May baby so started maternity in the new tax year). So 43 weeks paid leave was pretty good! With my second baby (August) I used my annual leave for my firsts birthday, family holiday and an extra week of maternity 🥲 just had to spread it out a bit more!

I have done it both times. Used annual leave to finish early and I go back in January but using holidays so I will get paid the last month and a half of mat leave. Means I only don't get paid for 6 weeks of the whole 12 months off. And got keep in touch days to top it up also xx

@Laura my first I worked mostly up to the due date with 10 days off before. For me wasn't enough after I factored nesting in (which is a whole another level to cleaning lol) plus we've done amazing to get this far so should enjoy a bit of r&r. :)

Defo don’t do it before. You will be extremely bored I dropped to part time from full time when I came back and used my leave to extend my maternity leave by an extra two months.

I did both 😂 had annual leave booked to take before maternity leave started but then baby came early so maternity leave had to start. So rolled over that leave to the end of maternity leave, then added on all my accrued leave for the year I was off, then the bank holidays I was owed, ended up with a fair bit to take! Mat leave ended on 16th August but I’m still off until 24th October.

I used all of my leave before so I was able to have a month off before my mat leave officially started. When I return to work in March (ish) time, I’ll also have another 25 days to use before I return on a phased return ☺️ Loved having the time off before as my partner moved back to the UK from overseas ready for our daughter so it was lovely to spend some time together just us two beforehand- although I know this is a very rare scenario 😅

Thanks everyone really good to know! I have 11 days left at the moment and I’m due November so will prob take beforehand, if don’t use any next month, so at least an extra week or 10 days before mat leave starts. My holiday is Jan - Dec. So I’ll have a new lot of annual leave accrue from Jan to when I’m back next November :)

I rolled it to the end. That way I minimised income loss and was able to extend paid leave by over 2 months using rolled over and newly accrued leave and KIT days.